Will o' the Whisp
by vilyasthrall
Summary: After Severus Snape's death, Shacklebolt finds a pensieve filled with the 'true memories' of Severus Snape. Severus Snape- not triple agent, but quadruple agent, for a third, unknown, side. What else will he discover about the past he never wished to know?
**In League**

 _A/N: This is hopefully not too OOC. Some cluelessness/bashing. I was challenged to write a 'Snape is a traitor' fic and decided to do something I hadn't seen before. The second chapter is in progress._

 _Post-Deathly Hallows, supposedly canon compliant._

 _Disclaimer: J K Rowling, Warner Bros and other copyright holders own Harry Potter and other characters and setting. I do not, unfortunately._

"Ah, Kingsley," the whispy Severus Snape said as he turned on the spot, and focused on the shocked wizard standing in front of him. "I presume Potter didn't see through the sentimental drivel I was forced to give him and pour these memories down the nearest plughole. How gratifying."

Kingsley coughed awkwardly. The memories weren't alive, he told himself; this must be a specific message set for him after an eerily true guess on his behaviour. With its piercing sarcasm still unfortunately intact.

"Since you have proved rather less... blind... to Dumbledore's little foibles than some I could name," Snape continued, staring into the middle-distance, "we decided to give you the truth.

"Well," he corrected himself, "most of the truth. More than you'll think you can handle, anyway."

Kingsley stared at the shape as it paused, trying to work out what was happening. Was Snape now renouncing being a triple agent for being a quadruple agent, and why to him, when he was supposed to be a hero? What could he have gained through this?

"This is the story, Shacklebolt. Not the sentiment."

It took Kingsley a moment to realize the figure had winked out of existence, and he rushed over to the pensieve to stare at the memories. Red threads ran through the white cloud, presumably those that had already been seen.

Minerva was still checking the grounds. He'd be wanted at the Ministry some time soon. But Potter had cleared Snape, and this announcement that the story had more to it rang true- infatuation could only extend so far, surely.

Kingsley hesitated, looking around at the strangely oblivious portraits. He knew how a pensieve worked in theory, knew how to escape if it got too much. And he was still, at heart, a Hufflepuff; Snape had proved his ultimate loyalty, so it was pretty certain he could be trusted on the strength of Potter's testament alone.

He breathed, and then plunged in.

Kingsley recognized this place. Of course he did. It was the corridor outside Courtroom 10. A slightly younger Severus Snape was leaning against the wall opposite the door, his posture defensive and his gaze fixed on-

Kingsley let out a strangled sob. If this was some cruel joke by the potions master, he would do everything he could to make the man's last rites a misery. Alastor Moody, looking the same as he had when he'd taken Kingsley on as an apprentice, was slouched against the door lintel, and seemed to be smiling.

"Well?" Snape asked impatiently.

Moody grinned, his magic eye turned to look out of the back of his head. "Did it," he said.

"Crouch isn't presiding?"

"Nope." He seemed uncharacteristically at ease in Snape's presence, given their history and antagonism. If this was when Kingsley thought it was- Snape's private, unheard, trial- Moody should be at Snape's neck.

"I refuse to beg," Snape said stiffly. "Who?"

"Amelia Bones."

"She's extremely loyal to Dumbledore!"

"Don't I know it."

"How did you manage that?"

Moody tapped his less-scarred nose. "That's for me to know," he said, "and you to fail to find out."

"Dumbledore told you to help me, didn't he?"

"Nope."

"You're in the Order, aren't you?"

"Could be. But not everyone's in it for the same reasons."

"Why are you helping me, you bastard?"

Moody smiled again, in that irritating half-smirk Kingsley had often seen him turn on his co-captain Scrimgeour, and hobbled off.

Kingsley stared after him, whilst Snape shifted and muttered under his breath.

What the hell had just happened?

The first memory dissolved into tendrils of smoke and Kingsley felt a shock jar his virtual legs as the ground changed beneath him. It seemed to drop slightly, and suddenly he was back in the Headmaster's office. The portraits around him and Snape were whispering and muttering to each other, and Dumbledore's portrait again hung in pride of place.

Snape was seated in the Headmaster's chair, once again reading a book. This time, Kingsley found the title to be _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore_ , and Kingsley spent a little while cursing the infernal journalist for making their lives all that much more difficult whilst the Ministry had been falling.

His rant was interrupted by Snape, who snorted and then laughed out loud. "Oh, that is precious," Snape said to himself, folding over the top corner of the page. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that she'd quoted you word for word, Mad-Eye."

Kingsley's eyes snapped up at that, and he leaned forward to look at the page, but the memory was already fading and blurring the words on the page. All he caught was the chapter title: '1950-60: Darkest Nights & The Hidden War.'

How was Moody even there? To be there before dying, with that book, this memory had to have to be early in the last Summer. No-one was talking to Snape then, since it was after he murdered Dumbledore, or, as Potter protested, after Dumbledore had forced him to kill the headmaster. But Moody shouldn't have known that; after all, he was the one to have put up the defences around Grimmauld Place _against_ Snape, wasn't he?

Could Snape be making these memories up? What about the others?

"Really?" Moody asked through the mist. "I think I trust Rita to do a bit better than that, mind. She's got some brains in that deceitful little head."

"Whatever."

"Shouldn't you be getting back to lesson-planning?"

"Why don't you?" Snape challenged, lazily. "After all, you're the one who skipped out of nine months of teaching."

Moody's face darkened. "Fine," he said. "But if that-" he jammed his thumb at Dumbledore's frozen portrait contemptuously, "-tells you anything about what the hell Potter's supposed to be doing, I want to the first to know."

"Yes, _sir_ ," Snape said, mock-obedient. "Of course, sir."

"Shut up."

Perhaps it was time he actually read the book, Kingsley thought, before his feet dropped again.

The next memory was arguably less strange. The setting was the kitchen in Grimmauld Place. It didn't look like a particularly memorable meeting, and it was just on the verge of breaking up.

Kingsley fought the urge to close his eyes tight as Remus and Tonks walked through him, closely followed by Hestia and Minerva. So many dead, all walking around, as bold as brass in memory... No wonder Moody had been so taken by his photo of the old Order. Had he realized that soon they would all be dead too?

So where was Snape?

Snape remained seated on the counter, with his nose in a book. Kingsley sauntered over, still fighting the urge to raise his wand defensively, and looked at the title. Undoubtedly one of the illegal titles Molly had tried to burn after moving in.

"As expected," he muttered under his breath.

Coincidentally- or not, as Kingsley was being to suspect- Moody too remained, scrutinizing a silver goblet embossed with the Black crest with his darting eye.

By their physical ages, they could be doing this in the present in the shadows of Sirius' house, although this had obviously occurred in '96 or 7.

Moody finally put the goblet down on the unoccupied chair nest to him, flicked his wand with apparent aimlessness and hiked his boots up on the table, like he had used to do with his desk.

"Well, lad?" he grunted.

"Well what?" Snape asked, not looking up from his book.

"What didn't you tell the old man? Don't look like that," Moody added quickly, "I soundproofed the room myself."

"I know," Snape said snidely. "I felt it. Losing your touch?"

Snape sighed and delicately turned the page.

"You know as well as I that we're losing," he said.

Kingsley frowned as Moody nodded agreement. "Of course," the old Auror said. "And we'll keep on losing as long as Albus is convinced that his way's the best, and doesn't tell us everything. But if he'll trust anyone, he certainly won't trust us."

Us, Kingsley noticed. The second suspicious plural that had been used in these memories. Since when had Moody voluntarily lumped himself in with Snape? He seemed to remember rather vehement arguments against his induction into the order, arguments Dumbledore had easily ignored.

"What'y're reading, lad?" Moody asked, and Kingsley was abashed to notice that he'd got up and was staring over Snape's shoulder.

"'Kar-u-frac.'"

"Come again?"

"'How to Hex your Enemies Blind in Thirteen Moderately-easy Steps and Four Extremely Difficult Ones,'" Snape said, without a moment's hesitation.

Kingsley started. Had Snape really just said that to one of the most law-abiding Aurors on the force?

Moody leaned against the side with one arm. "Got daydreams?" he drawled.

"About Dumbledore? Haven't we all."

Moody smirked again, and Kingsley belatedly realized that, come to it, the old Auror's sense of humour was actually rather like Snape's own.

"Bastard," Kingsley said under his breath, with feeling.

Kingsley gasped. It felt as if he had been forcefully thrown from the pensieve, although that shouldn't be possible unless the sequence of memories had finished. Could it have?

He felt even more confused than before, and that was saying something. His eyes were drawn back to the emotionless stone bowl and the silver still dancing within it.

No, there were more memories there, Kingsley decided. Snape had always loved to taunt the other members of the Order, Aurors especially, and, apparently, he'd found a way even in death to do that.

Whatever he was trying to insinuate about Alastor Moody and Dumbledore could wait, at least until Kingsley had had time to walk it off.

 _A/N: Apologies about any confusion caused. Snape just wouldn't play nicely with Kingsley when I asked him too, and Kingsley was too stubborn to simply do as a former Death Eater told him to._

 _My inspiration for this piece: As for the defences around 12 Grimmauld Place that the Trio found in DH, I have difficulty believing that paranoid Auror Moody's greatest defence against a murderous traitor was a Langlock curse that Snape obviously overcame anyway. To me, this suggested that Moody wasn't really trying._

 _If anyone else has any suggestions or evidence that doesn't seem to fit with the canon, I'd love to hear your views/conspiracy theories. Especially if anyone can find a good!Rita Skeeter in there._


End file.
